nvidia, 0-255 hdmi range - Page 2

With the driver version 275.33 on a Gigabyte GTX 550ti, madVR 0.69, LAV CUVID 0.9, and LAV Splitter/audio 0.3, I cant get a gray bar at 17 with the AVS HD test disc flashing black bar pattern (using the mt2s file from the disc that has both the flashing black and the flashing white patterns) no matter how high I turn up brightness on my display. So it's like these settings are setting reference black to 17 rather than 16.

My display (Samsung LN52A650) is set to HDMI Black=normak (Samsung speak for 0-255), Nvidia drivers are set to 0-255 and RGB is selected (rather than YCbCr 4:4:4) in the drivers and my renderer (either madVR or EVR custom) is set to 0-255. I have a custom resolution with HD audio enabled at 23.976. This is connected through a Yamaha AVR. The same thing happens if the GPU is connected directly to the TV via HDMI, so it's not the AVR

With an ATI HD6570 and Catalyst 11.6, I can adjust brightness to barely see a flashing bar at 17 with the comparable settings as above, so this further tells me that the problem is nVidia and not my renderer, AVR or TV. The problems that I'm having with ATI are: 1) deinterlacing randomly gets switched to BOB, 2) Cyberlink HAM gives me stutter in MPC-HC with madVR, and 3) occasional lip sync glitches (23Hz default setting is actually 23.9766, which is much closer out of the box than nVidia..maybe reclock can help with this)

I really like the simplicity of LAV CUVID (HW deinterlacing on in the settings) + madVR, but I can't get the colors that I get with ATI with the minimal and logical settings.

With the nVidia setup when I set everything (display, drivers and renderer) at 16-235, I can crank up brightness so that I can see all bars flash (0 included) and manually adjust contrast on the TV to get 17 barely flashing (thus reference black is 16), BUT I thought I read somewhere that the chain needs to be 0-255 to get the benefits of madVR. If that's not true, then the only side effect I get with this is a washed out desktop, but I'll be in MediaPortal or MPC-HC 90% of the time

I'd really appreciate it if somebody could help me with getting the nvidia setup right, or advise me on the universal 16-235 settings in madVR.

Finally, is the ATI solution viable with the right choice of decoders for the right files in conjunction with reclock?

Thanks!

Jay

Are you calibrating with MadVR? BTW I have a Samsung LN46A650 and get consistent black all through, desktop and video, with no adjustments of brightness or contrast in the Nvidia driver, nor in madVR, RGB everywhere & custom resolutions for 60hz & 24hz of course. I can't spot a problem in your setup from what you say.

Are you sure that the custom resolution is actually applied? Otherwise the desktop will be in video levels.

First off this is great news! Your screen is essentially the same as mine (same electronics and tech...just different size) and you're getting consistent blacks with nvidia. This implies that I'm doing something wrong (or at the very least, different than you), which is what I was hoping for!!! I'm really rooting for the nVidia solution to "win out" in my house.

With your TV are you using HDMI 1,2, or 3 (or 4)? Did you rename the input to "PC" ? Is your "Black Adjust" set to normal or low, and is your xvYCC setting on or off? Have you tried the exact test pattern that I was referring to and can you see a faint black bar on 17 after adjusting brightness on the TV?

With nVidia drivers, what is your version and settings. Did you create your custom resolution in an earlier driver and simply retain the custom settings/resolutions after upgrading?

Now as far as the custom resolution goes in my case, there may be something screwy. On a clean install of v275.33, 23Hz in the default "audio enabled" 1080p resolution comes in at 23.972. Selecting 24Hz default before doing any custom rez gave me 23.9998.

After creating and applying the custom rez, I get 23.9758 and that's what MPC with madVR or EVR custom essentially reports. So it seems like I can HOWEVER, when I save the 23 Hz resolution, the custom heading above the native resolutions in the nvidia control panel say something like "1920x1080 progressive 24Hz" even though I saved it as 23Hz (selected that up top before doing manual down below). Furthermore, when I go back to 1080p native, the refresh dropdown gives me 60, 59, and 23 as options. No 24 Hz native. So it's like the driver is removing my default 24 Hz resolution and moving it to custom with timings that give me very close to 23.976. Do you think this is a problem with v275.33? Should I uninstall and use an earlier version?

Now, on to madVR. I haven't done any calibration here. To do 3DLUT, don't I need hardware like a spectrophotometer to do this right? I don't have one? So far I have it set to "not calibrated" but I don't think this alone is why I can't see 17 on the test pattern. I can't see it in EVR custom or in WMP. So will madVR calibrate my TV for me? Can I do this with software, or do I need some hardware to do it right? What about yCMS? I've tried to read up on both but there's a ton of stuff on Doom9 in that long madVR thread. Can you offer some suggestions on the nuts and bolts of doing this in madVR , especially given how close your screen is to mine?

So, I hope this answers some of your questions about what I've done or not done. It seems like I should be close and that it's possible to attain consistency.

If I get this working, the first thing I do will be to make a system image!

Thanks for helping!

J

I went to check that pattern from the AVCHD disk and, big surprise!, I see the faint black bar on 17 with TMT5 but not with MPC-HC or JR16MC, both with madvr. But get same results with EVR or EVR-CP.

I then tried the pluge pattern from DVE HD Basics and the black bar is not visible, with same results now with TMT5 and MPC-HC.

So, results are inconsistent only with the AVCHD disk. In any event your setup is 100% OK.

I will try sticking my ATI card back to try and report ...

EDIT:

OK, just tested on my ATI-equipped HTPC (4670, Cat 11.3, RGB all over) and behavior is the same (no faint black bar on 17), so I guess there's not really a problem here ...

When I uninstall my nvidia drivers, shut down, take out the GTX 550, put in the HD6570 in the same rig, then install catalyst (set all to RGB), I CAN see 17 in MPC-HC with madVR or EVR custom using ATI. I can't with the nVidia card and drivers. So in my environment, there is an discrepancy between ATI and nVidia. At brightness=43-44 on my TV (all else constant) 18 looks a bit more defined on ATI vs nVidia. On nVidia I can barely see 18 at that setting whereas I can barely see 17 on that setting. In that light (or lack there of ) I may be getting a slight amount of Black Crush with nVidia?

Real world example: Pop in opening scenes of Kill Bill V 1 or 2. The left side of Uma's face looks more shadowed (less detail near her left eye) on nVidia vs ATI as shown above just before Bill shoots her in the head.

The other difference between the two is that I'm using LAV CUVID with nVidia and MPC or Cyberlink HAM with ATI (EVR custom or madVR), BUT the decoder shouldn't affect this, right?

But you're saying the pattern is inconsistent across applications with nVidia. I'll do two action items later tonight:
1. I'll try installing the trial of TMT 5 and checking to see what 17 does on nVidia in TMT
2. Use MPC-HC and Cyberlink HAM as the decoders (try both separately that is) with nVidia instead of LAV CUVID, which will provide a more apple-2-apple with ATI. I'd be happy right now if I didn't see 17 on ATI.....

Also, what sort of tips can you give me re madVR calibration?

Thanks for your time and help :-)

do you have the hdmi port labeled 'pc dvi'?

Ok, here's a quick fix. Go the color & gamma tab under the display device in madVR setup, tick on "enable gamma processing" and set it to 2.15. That did it for me (faint black showing on 17 like TMT5).

BTW it works with the Samsung TV either in PC mode or not.

On my samsung, even though input was labeled PC (doesn't matter), and HDMI Black=normal and color space = native I was in movie mode instead of standard on the main picture adjustment menu! Changing to Standard mode and calibrating from there gives me a nice bright windows desktop and I can see faint 17 now in MPC/mad! I think there's something screwy about movie mode????

I plugged directly into the TV into HDMI 3 which was in standard mode when I tested with ATI and had everything calibrated the same otherwise! With the nvidia card, it uses a mini HDIM connector (mini HDMI to regular HDMI plugged into the AVR). The ATI card has a regular HDMI connector, so I used a regular HDMI cable and it was easier to get to the TV's port rather than to the back of the AVR. Bad oversight on my part (blush).

Now when I set brightness on the TV to 42 with nVidia, faint 17 goes away, so brightness is 43, which is what I got with ATI.

I also just redid my custom rez. as 24 rather than 23. Set front porch and v Sync both to 5, total pixels vertical pixels to 1129 and Hz to 23.978 and I'm locked in at 23.97591! I'm getting frame drop reported on the days scale

Just to back verify, I plugged ATI back in through AVR and HDMI 2 in movie mode and I can't get faint 17. Now everything is consistent!

Looks like ATI may lose this one!

those of you having issues with calibrating you are doing something wrong. my dedicated Hometheater room with HTPC and projector calibrate perfectly using XBMC.

You need to do two things in the video panel set it to 0-255 full when you have a 16-235 source and set it to 16-235 when you have a 0-255 video source.... haha, i know.

And then because nvidia are utter idiots and refused for years now to allow a master desktop 0-255 vs 16-235 user controlled toggle and insist that they know best how to set it for you (which is almost always wrong!) you need to trick it by making a custom resolution which for some reason always decides to send 0-255, why, who knows. The people who need to make custom res and actually need 16-235 sent out are 100% up the creek, utterly ridiculous. I just don't understand why nvidia refuses to put a toggle button for this. They already have the code to do it they just won't let the user toggle it! People have been writing to them and blasting them over this for years and nobodu understands wrong is wrong with the manager of their driver team. it just boggles the mind.

SOmeone else found another way to force 0-255, first start installing a driver and then abort before it actually starts up for real, then go to the directory it made usually C:/NVIDIA/DisplayDriver/#.#/OS Name/Whatever Language/Display.Driver/ and open nv_disp.inf in notepad and then add the line "HKR,,SetDefaultFullRGBRangeOnHDMI,%REG_DWORD%,1" right after each occurrence of "[nv_miscBase_addreg__##]", for example turn:

"[nv_miscBase_addreg__09]
HKLM,"Software\\Khronos\\OpenCL\\Vendors",nvcuda.dll,%REG_DWORD%,0x00000000
HKLM,"Software\\NVIDIA Corporation\\Global\\Hybrid",AddDeviceSequence,%REG_DWORD%,1
HKLM,"Software\\NVIDIA Corporation\\Global\\NVTweak",NoPages,%REG_DWORD%,0x40120518
HKLM,"Software\\Nvidia Corporation\\Global\\NvTweak",DISABLE1355RP,%REG_DWORD%,1
HKLM,"Software\\Wow6432Node\\Khronos\\OpenCL\\Vendors",nvcuda.dll,%REG_DWORD%,0x00000000
HKR,,MonitorCapabilityList,%REG_MULTI_SZ%,"ACR,0126,70"
HKR,,RmBandwidthFeature,%REG_DWORD%,0x400
HKR,,UserModeDriverGUID,%REG_SZ%,"{9A516B97-E7C1-451B-9165-C5035994A3F5}"

[nv_miscBase_addreg__10]
HKLM,"Software\\Khronos\\OpenCL\\Vendors",nvcuda.dll,%REG_DWORD%,0x00000000
HKLM,"Software\\NVIDIA Corporation\\Global\\Hybrid",AddDeviceSequence,%REG_DWORD%,1
HKLM,"Software\\NVIDIA Corporation\\Global\\NVTweak",NoPages,%REG_DWORD%,0x40120518
HKLM,"Software\\Nvidia Corporation\\Global\\NvTweak",DISABLE1355RP,%REG_DWORD%,1
HKLM,"Software\\Wow6432Node\\Khronos\\OpenCL\\Vendors",nvcuda.dll,%REG_DWORD%,0x00000000
HKR,,MonitorCapabilityList,%REG_MULTI_SZ%,"ACR,0126,70"
HKR,,RmDisableP1020PStateCap,%REG_DWORD%,1
HKR,,UserModeDriverGUID,%REG_SZ%,"{9A516B97-E7C1-451B-9165-C5035994A3F5}""

into:
"[nv_miscBase_addreg__09]
HKR,,SetDefaultFullRGBRangeOnHDMI,%REG_DWORD%,1
HKLM,"Software\\Khronos\\OpenCL\\Vendors",nvcuda.dll,%REG_DWORD%,0x00000000
HKLM,"Software\\NVIDIA Corporation\\Global\\Hybrid",AddDeviceSequence,%REG_DWORD%,1
HKLM,"Software\\NVIDIA Corporation\\Global\\NVTweak",NoPages,%REG_DWORD%,0x40120518
HKLM,"Software\\Nvidia Corporation\\Global\\NvTweak",DISABLE1355RP,%REG_DWORD%,1
HKLM,"Software\\Wow6432Node\\Khronos\\OpenCL\\Vendors",nvcuda.dll,%REG_DWORD%,0x00000000
HKR,,MonitorCapabilityList,%REG_MULTI_SZ%,"ACR,0126,70"
HKR,,RmBandwidthFeature,%REG_DWORD%,0x400
HKR,,UserModeDriverGUID,%REG_SZ%,"{9A516B97-E7C1-451B-9165-C5035994A3F5}"

[nv_miscBase_addreg__10]
HKR,,SetDefaultFullRGBRangeOnHDMI,%REG_DWORD%,1
HKLM,"Software\\Khronos\\OpenCL\\Vendors",nvcuda.dll,%REG_DWORD%,0x00000000
HKLM,"Software\\NVIDIA Corporation\\Global\\Hybrid",AddDeviceSequence,%REG_DWORD%,1
HKLM,"Software\\NVIDIA Corporation\\Global\\NVTweak",NoPages,%REG_DWORD%,0x40120518
HKLM,"Software\\Nvidia Corporation\\Global\\NvTweak",DISABLE1355RP,%REG_DWORD%,1
HKLM,"Software\\Wow6432Node\\Khronos\\OpenCL\\Vendors",nvcuda.dll,%REG_DWORD%,0x00000000
HKR,,MonitorCapabilityList,%REG_MULTI_SZ%,"ACR,0126,70"
HKR,,RmDisableP1020PStateCap,%REG_DWORD%,1
HKR,,UserModeDriverGUID,%REG_SZ%,"{9A516B97-E7C1-451B-9165-C5035994A3F5}""

usually have to add it to about 10 occurrences

and then save it back and then double clikc "setup.exe" one directory prior and do the install

pretty stupid they dn't just allow a user toggle during the installer or far better on the installed control panel, ATI took forever to get this most basic of all facts and even they did at more than two years ago!

doesn't standard mode turn off some important options for calibration and force on some nasty stuff?

see my trick at the end for force the built-in modes to 0-255

and once again i will say why on Earth does nvidia not give the user a toggle on the panel for this? they lose so much business and get so many confused calls to tech support but they stubbornly ignore 100% all requests for this, you can send a list of requests and sometimes they respond directly to all, but never this one, who on Earth is leading their driver team these past years??? it's just nuts. nothing is more simple and basic to get than this.

oh man sounds like they messed up the custom res creator again! I think it has worked for a short patch of 3-4 drivers and that is it over the last 18months I don't understand what is going on over there and who they have running the place

WIth new 680GTX drivers all of these fixes no longer works.

Picture quality over HDMI is ugly on Nv card

I need to set PC category resolutions for proper RGB levels/colors, but 1280x1024 is max resoulution, my HDTV native isnt there . 1080p is only in HD/SD cattegory and all resolutions from sd/hd cattegory produce bad rgb colors.
Only samsung HDTV's has fix for it (Samsung HDTV will send 2'nd EDID, that will tell Nv card it is connected to PC monitor)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=Y8wC_nDHi6U
Hope that Nv will fix it, IT'S HUGE ISSUE. WHat they are doing is just forcing people to buy radeon card
Edited by pawel86ck - 6/27/12 at 6:49am